Yes, it's true I'm afraid. (See Bookfetish's comment to the previous post.) There is a Big Bookshop warehouse sale on in Atria, and I had to go along as soon as I heard ... never mind that I had just had a nice little spree at MPH with the book vouchers I'd collected (and thanks Eric for being my bookshelf guide!)
The warehouse sale is very tempting indeed. Most of the books are very recent with a lot of hardbacks and good quality paperbacks and plenty of choice. Prices are of course higher than at other warehouse sales, but at around RM18 for a trade paperback and RM12-14 for a mass market paperback, very affordable ... until you start filling up your little basket.
And don't worry about everything being sold out by the time you get there. The sale goes on to the end of December, the stock is piled high, and there are still 300 pallets of books not yet unpacked!!!!!
I got 11 books (for RM201) and am happy with the haul! Thank goodness I've made some room on my bookshelves ... but the real problem is making enough room in my life to read 'em all!
44 comments:
Dear Sharon,
Thanks for the info. I'll go grab myself a copy of Didion's book and many others :)
I heard that the Payless Books is having another warehouse sales on the mid of December too, venue not yet confirm.
I think I better do my financial planning......
ooooohhh thanks for the word on the payless sale.
Cool! Perhaps after I come back to KL from my short expedition to East Malaysia... I wonder if one could find any of them "banned" books at these sales.. heh-heh...
no i didn't see any "banned" titles - everything was pretty safe. (though there was a nice compilation of essays about marijuana if you want to walk on the wild side!)
If you don't mind me asking, where's Atria? Not exactly a Kl-lite you see.
oh ... fuck ...
Glory! Thanks for the heads up, Bibs! No time to read, will be writing most of the month!! Planning to work on three writings for submission - one is the Perdana Leadership Foundation, another for Xeus, and another for Silverfish. I'm still pondering about the KAF one, that one sounded a bit daunting.
Wish me all the best!
visitor my man...my sentiment exactly and that's not because i'm currently in manila...
but there's no such thing as too much of good things so, lets OVERspend somemore...book sales are doing great things for book collectors (not neccessarily readers) like me...
bawang merah - damansara jaya. from town take jalan damansara and then the nkve and turn off left
(one of those kl map books is a great investment!!!!)
or jump in a taxi
phillip - i'm so happy to see you writing so much!
my wallet ... is crying ...
mine too ... trouble is ... you're going to be miserable if you don't go and miserable (because broke) if you do ... and what if the rumour of a payless sale is true?
After accidently stumbling over the sale, thought I'd head over here and let you know but it seems that you already did!
All book lovers must head there .. at least once :)
thanks a lot lena. i enjoyed looking at your picture of your purchases on your blog. seems like the forces of the universe keep conspiring to make us buy books!
just came back from the big sale and RM250 lighter (since i'm already broke so that means another 250 from ah long- c card-)
noticed there is a stack of 'auto da fe' by elias canetti... so for "pessoa" if you happens to visit ms bib blog here do go...you've been bitching how hard to get this one.
and there's midnight children too...i tought it's banned here?
but my best find had to be a little book "ali and nino" by 'kurban said' (with forward by p thoreux)...this is the central figure in the great Tom Reiss biography/travelogue "the orientalist"....
when is the last day?
Warehouse sales are bargain sales; and they are evry cheap indeed compared with those sales in bookshops. You will undoubtedly load up your basket, thinking that they are very cheap until you reach the cash register; and find taht you have to pay quite a price because they are cheap.
I read somewhere that even if the price of a book is cheap, it is expensive if you do not need it! You are so easily tempted to hoard your bookshelves with books when there are such sales.
Another cheap place where you can get hold of books of all sorts of titles is the ship which goes round the world! Once , years ago, I went to Port Klang where the book -SHIP ( a SHIP of books) and bought a good number of books. They were so cheap that even the warehouse sales would be out of business ! $1.00 books were in abundance ! No warehouse could beat that price! While there you might be tempted to buy the WHOLE ship of books!
Now, the more nutty and knotty problem after having obtained your possessions is to find TIME to read them! Time is a scarce commodity and you may not have the time to read them all. Then, what happens? The books will be lying on the shelves and crying to be read! And the owner is just too busy doing all the other mundane errands and chores and thus has no time to do them a favour. Perhaps, the owner may just flip through somepages and leave the books aside because they do notentice them to go further; they just do not entrap and enthrall the reader. So, sometimes readers may just wonder how such books get published in the first place when they do not get readers hooked onto them!
And since time is precious, a reader could not afford to hover a book that is tasteless and unappetizing.A writer of such a book has lost a fan; he will not buy a book bearing his or her name.
It is a tricky business to choose wisely a book. a wise man once said taht some books are to be chewed; others are to be chewed and digested. And of course, most of them are to be vomited.
Yes, TIME is an important factor, for no reader has all the time in the world to read from cover to cover of every book. Only exceptionally good books deserve the utmost attention of readers going line by line!
S.H. Huang
greenbottle - i saw 'auto da fe' and thought that rings a bell but i couldn't remember where i'd heard about it before. will no doubt have to go back and buy the damn thing now.
(along with that french phrase book for cats!)
juria - 31st december according to the huge banner they have put up
Be careful of the copy of Midnight's Children at the sale as the first 22 pages are missing.
Great sale though!
sympozium - *gasp* thanks goodness you've warned us!
anyway, what did you buy?
aaaaaanya aaanyaa!!
i just splurged on household items during JJ midvalley members sale last week :|
and now this?
i hope my plastic swipe monetary system will recover by next month (the warehouse sale will end by december, no?)
Robert Hughes's The Fatal Shore, The Boy in The Striped Pyjamas, An Imaginary Life (David Mahlouf), The Ode Less Travelled, Brink's Praying Mantis (I noticed the name of the character has been changed from Cupido Cockroach in the first printing to Cupid Cupido in the reprints)...wanted a lot more but the salespeople were chasing us out by 9.20 p.m. Tempted to get Tashy's book again in trade format but cannot imagine me rereading the book...
Yup, saw only one copy of Midnight's Children and found the first 20 odd pages missing...but they've dropped the prices for the hardcover for Shalimar and also Arthur & George from RM24.90 to RM19.90...
Did you say it's on till the end of December? I'm going to check it out as soon as I get over my jetlag.
Arthur & George hardcover ah???
Yes, in that brown-diarrhoeic-turd coloured cloth-y format. Worth getting!
anonymous...
you obviously are NOT a book lover...real book addicts don't care if they can't read all the books they bought...i can't finish all my books even if i have another three lives ..but no matter...i'll keep on buying them...
wouldn't it be a good idea to be buried with books when one is dead ...
shit! i have to head down there tomoro then!!!
laydiefa - goodness this sounds serious ... what if you don't have money to eat?
chet - that's what the banner says ... welcome back anyway.
sympozium - have to go back if they have 'fatal shore' - i love it so much and my copy is so tatty. i beg to differ re. your description of the 'arthur and george' - the cover is so tactile and lovely and pea-greeny and old-fashioned. shame about the typos though!
greenbottle - we buried my dad with his favourite golfing books.
i read someone saying that the unread books on your bookshelves just act as a reading list for the future.
and having been so badly book-deprived for chunks of my life - i guess i'm hoarding for all eventualities.
Read, books?
What, is this some kind of communist blog?
I only saw one copy of Fatal Shore - would have both another for my friend. If you see lots more can you get me a copy as well?
I like the cover of A&G but the colour is so turdy! :-) Haven't read it yet so don't know about the typos...
"both" - I meant 'bought'...
anyone know if there's copies of Faulkner's Light In August? its such a good book, i wana buy some copies to give to friends. that is, if they're going cheap.
sufian - *LOL* i guess it is a strange thing to do with books
visitor - no faulkener as far as i could see. mostly uk and australian editions.
surprise, surprise, i did find ONE Faulkner. Absalom, Absalom.
Did anyone see any V S Naipaul, Vikram Seth or Alice Walker?
i dont recall seeing any of their books. got Toni Morrison tho. and Ian watshisname's hardcover Saturday.
just visited The Big Bookshop w/h sales yesterday & today..bought couple of books and was here to find out what you guys bought ; )..too bad they don't have many children books. BUT I was lucky to buy "The Spiderwick Chronicles" box set at 39.90!! :) whoopee!
Visitor - which Toni Morrison did you get?
My Loot: Craig Clevenger, Contortionist's Handbook (According to C.Pahlaniuk, "The best book i have read in easily 5 years!"), Auto-Da-Fe, Elias Canetti (You must buy this Sharon, just read the blurb at the back!!!!!!!!!), Confessions of An Economic Hitman (RM5, ridiculous!), The Paper House by Carlos Maria Dominguez (A savage hand-to-hand combat ensued to wrest the book from Amri's grubby hand. I lie. He crumpled like a bag of potatoe (!) chip), The Half Brother, Lars Saabye Christensen (Remembered it from the Impac nomination), Travelling with Che Guevara, Alberto Granado (Book that lousy movie was made from), Glass Warrior (A book about war photojournalist, now, if only i can afford to buy a camera), Suite Francais, Irene Nemirovsky, (the most hyped literary book of 2006, how can I not own it?), How Israel Lost, Richard Ben Cramer
oh i meant there's Toni Morrison and Ian whatshisname at the sale. sorry, i didnt mean that i bought them.
i only bought three books.
Faulkner's Absalom Absalom, Auto Da Fe and a non-fiction book called China Inc. i decided to forego Arthur & George (not becos of the cover, no!).
bex - didn't see any of those authors. the payless sale might be a better hunting ground for you.
sufian - i have to go back now, don't i? damn! ... suite francais too????
And don't forget Canetti's memoir: Party in the Blitz!
Hi Sharon, i was at the sale today and it was greaaattttttt! I bought 7 books, dont know if ive time to read them all, but who cares? I grabbed Haruki Murukami's 'Kafka on the shore' for only RM12. :)
See u on Monday night.
sufian - arrrgghhh!
hameedah - yes who cares. hoarding books is a great feeling too
btw - mid-december may be a good time to go back as there are more boxes that will be opened then
Hi there. I just bought a medical reference book at the Warehouse Sale at Big Bookstore in Atria today. It happened that my dad has the same book, but an older version. So, I'm reselling the book.
Title: Family Medical Companion.
Price: RM19.90
Description: hard cover book, with information on medical symptoms, anatomy. first aid, medical dictionary and etc.
Anyone interested, kindly e-mail me at: anisha_muheir86@hotmail.com
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